Context – went on a group bike ride earlier this week and it was the last ride of the season. I'm not too familiar or close with anyone I just show up and ride with everyone and stay a bit for post-ride refreshments. After the ride I was sitting in an open area and someone came up to me asking about my bike – it's a custom/non-standard bike so that tends to be a conversation starter. After talking about it I asked him about his bike and his cycling habits, and a conversation naturally flowed from there. He proceeded to tell me about his experience, his hometown, and some stuff around the city that I had no idea about. This went on for probably half an hour before he had to head out. Overall it was a nice chat and I was glad I got to talk to someone.
There were a lot of good takeaways I got out of it. I was able to have the conversation because someone noticed me/my bike and wanted to know more about it. This tells me how important noticing others is and how showing a genuine curiosity for them can lead to nice interactions. While I wasn't the one who initiated the conversation, it helped that I had something that someone else noticed about me, and I did my best to make myself seem open to having someone come up and talk to me. I was also sure to try my best to contribute to the conversation to keep it going. I would listen, reflect, and also provide something from my experience/perspective. It also showed me just how important "experience" – in the sense of having done things – is important in having things to talk about.
Looking back I realized what my strengths and weaknesses were in that conversation, and how I generally am when talking to people:
- Strengths: I'm very much good at listening and paying attention to the people I'm talking to. I'm also good at reflecting and providing additional prompts for people to build off of.
- Weaknesses: Unable to initiate and carry a conversation, in the sense that if I was the one who wanted to talk to someone I would struggle with not only initiating but following up like transitioning from one topic to the next. I also personally feel like my "experience" in having things to talk about is lacking, and so I need to build that up some more if I want to be a bit more comfortable talking to people. There's other things mostly tied to insecurities (being afraid of feeling awkward, worrying about the convo dying out, etc.).
Overall, if I want to have more conversations like that in the future, I will have to take initiative, rather than hoping I get noticed. That said, I can still do things to signal to others that I am open to talking to them as a way of easing into it. I can also lean more on my strengths and *hopefully* find people that like talking to have conversations with them.